Google+ Membership Skyrockets

Traffic up 1,269% after membership opened up
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted Sep 28, 2011 6:16 AM CDT
Google+ Membership Skyrockets
Traffic to Google Plus has exploded, according to Internet metrics companies.   (Google)

Google+ ditched its invite-only policy last week and was rewarded with a massive surge in traffic—a 1,269% rise, according to Experian Hitwise. The Internet metrics company believes that on the day after the policy changed, Google overtook Twitter to become the third-most popular social media site in the US, behind only Facebook and YouTube, the San Jose Mercury News reports. Google+ now has more than 50 million members, according to one analyst's estimate.

Google's social network is seeing its audience base shift away from 18- to 24-year-olds toward one more representative of the general population, according to Hitwise, which notes that the network's popularity is soaring among middle-income users, singles, and Hispanics. Some analysts believe Google+ is capable of catching up with Facebook's 800 million users—helped along by concerns about privacy issues at Facebook and the site's soon-to-be-implemented redesign. (More Google Plus stories.)

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